Logan's Curse
by Cody'sxFavoritexGirl
Summary: Jean Grey's final moments. Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men franchise, but I am a huge fan.


**Logan's Curse**

_As Bobby, Colossus, and Kitty headed down the hallway after convincing Storm and Logan that they were ready to help fight Magneto and his mutants, Logan turned to Storm with an unusual feeling of pride burning through his veins. "They're ready."_

_Storm looked him right in the eyes, and the expression on her face drained all of the pride out of him instantly. "Yeah, I know, but are you ready to do what you need to do when the time comes?"_

* * *

_No, _Logan thought as carnage raged all around him. _I'm not ready. No one could ever be ready for this._

Jean stood there, a formidable figure atop a pile of cement. Her flame-colored hair flew out behind her, and her skin was extremely pale. Her face was gaunt, but the worst part was her eyes; they were black, and devoid of any emotion.

As Logan watched with Beast by his side, a wave of soldiers came over a rise, guns full of the cure clutched in their hands. They all took aim at Jean and the line of mutants behind her, and then they fired.

"No!" Logan shouted, already knowing what was going to happen next.

The wall of darts flew through the air, right at Jean. Just before they reached her, however, they seemed to dissolve, not a single one making contact.

The soldiers all stood there, frozen in terror, and then they started to dissolve too. It happened so fast that none of them had a chance to scream; one second they were there, and the next they weren't.

Jean's eyes seemed to blaze with a dark light, and mangled cars started to rise into the air all around the battlefield. Pieces of broken cement and metal beams, anything that wasn't tied down was seized by Jean's immense mental power and hoisted into the air. The remaining soldiers broke the line and ran for their lives, and even the mutants on the other side scrambled to escape. It was clear that Jean had become another person, and she didn't care what side she was on.

Magneto looked up at her from where he sat in the ground, his powers having been stripped when Beast plunged four darts full of the cure into his back. The sight of her both awed him and terrified him, and he finally understood what Logan had meant when he had said that he didn't know what he was dealing with. He had unleashed the destruction that was Jean Grey's dark side.

"What have I done?" he whispered, starting to crawl backwards, away from her.

Water from the bay shot up into twisting columns, reaching for the sky like shaky fingers. Logan turned in a slow circle as he gazed up at them, unable to believe that Jean had so much power.

Storm appeared by his side suddenly, her eyes wide with fear and urgency. "Logan, we need to go!"

Logan just shook his head. He wasn't going to leave Jean. He had done that once before, and the unthinkable had happened. Never again. "You know I'm the only one who can stop her," he told Storm, his voice oddly calm despite the chaos that was ensuing around them.

"Logan," Storm said desperately, a ton of emotion packed into his name.

"Go," he said, softly at first and then more forcefully when she didn't move. "Go!"

And she went. She gave him one last pained look, and then she went spiraling into the sky, to disappear among the dark clouds.

When Logan turned back around, the path between he and Jean was clear. It was just the two of them, just as it should be.

"Jean!" he called out, but the wall of her power that struck him at that moment was so strong that it tore his voice away, and her name was lost to the wind.

It felt like millions of knives were punching through his body, and he clenched his teeth to keep from screaming as his skin cracked and opened, only to seal up again due to his extraordinary healing ability. Still he struggled forward, his arms raised to protect his face as her power tore him open again and again.

Jean just stared at him as he approached, her eyes flat and dead. She increased the force that she was throwing at him, and occasionally some of his adamantium-covered bones would appear as his skin peeled open.

Logan continued pushing toward her, most of his X-Men suit dissolving until only the pants were left. He fell to his hands and knees at the base of the cement pile that she stood on, and clawed his way up it, the pain growing more intense the closer he got. Finally, he reached the top, and when he pushed himself back to his feet, he was face-to-face with Jean.

She looked nothing like the Jean he knew, this horrible creature. But he knew that she was in there, trying to escape whatever prison this thing had put her in. He wanted to reach out and touch her, and to feel her skin against his fingertips, but he knew that if he did, it would be deadly.

"You would die for them?" Jean hissed.

"No, not for them," Logan answered as the skin on his face started to split open. "For you. For _you_."

Jean's whole face seemed to transform. For one blessed moment, she was his Jean again. "Save me," she whispered, her voice full of anguish and tears starting to trickle down her cheeks.

This was the moment that Storm had warned would come. This was the choice he needed to make. He had seen the doubtful look in her eyes when she had turned away from him, the look that said that he wouldn't be able to do it, that his feelings would get in the way of the safety of the world.

"I love you," he whispered.

He wasn't sure whether it was he or Jean who screamed when his claws punched through her body. Jean looked at him as she took her last breath, and a peaceful smile seemed to curve her lips. Then her head fell back, and Jean Grey was gone.

A broken sob escaped Logan's throat, and he held her body close as the water splashed back into the sea and debris rained down around them. He fell to his knees and clung to her, rocking slowly back and forth as a keening noise rose from him, the purest sound of grief that had ever been heard.

_I love you._


End file.
